Rush Hour was another (successful) step by Jackie
Chan to win the American
market. He was born on April 7, 1954 under the name of Chan Kwong Sang.
His poor parents had fled China for a better life in Hong Kong where they
worked as cook and servant at the Australian embassy. Jackie Chan studied
for ten years at the Chinese Opera Research Institute. He began his career as a stuntman and he still does all the stunts
himself - they are the highlight of his films, Rush Hour included.
From the age of seven to ten, Jackie Chan went to the Chinese Opera
Research School in Hong Kong. There, he learned discipline, acting, singing,
dancing, acrobatics and martial arts. Later he became a stuntman and, two
years later, he was promoted stunt coordinator. His first role as an adult
actor was in Little Tiger from Canton in 1971. He soon realized
that he was no action star like Bruce Lee. Therefore, he created a new
genre: the Kung Fu comedy. In 1978, he shot the first films in that style:
Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master.

1980 marked his debut as a director in The Young
Master, in collaboration with his longstanding producer Raymond Chow.
Then came his first guest appearance in an American film, The Canonball
Run with Burt Reynolds and Roger Moore. But it took him a long time to
break through in the USA. The turning point came with Rumble in the
Bronx (1994), shot in Canada and produced in Hong Kong. Rush Hour
(1998) was his first American big budget movie.

Chris Tucker was part of the 1997-comedy Money Talks,
together with Charlie Sheen. In Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown he
played a small criminal and in Luc Besson's Fith Element he shone
as Ruby Rhod. In Rush Hour, he is one of the two stars but has only
a few great lines, such as: "Johnson, this is the LAPD. We're th most
hated cops in the free world. My own mama is ashamed of me. She tells
everybody I'm a drug dealer."

Rush Hour is about the Hong Kong detective
inspector Lee, Jackie Chan, who is a man of integrity and principles.
Circumstances force him to work together with the African American cop
James Carter (Chris Tucker), an Eddie Murphy-like character. The two
mismatched cops - who also have to fight with cultural differences - have
to solve a crime in Los Angeles. The daughter of Hong Kong's Consul Han (Tzi
Ma) has been kidnapped in Los Angeles. The kidnapper wants a $50 million
ransom. He is Chinese and a man, inspector Lee was not able to arrest in
Hong Kong. Behind him is another man named Juntao. He dominated crime in
Southeast Asia for 15 years and killed Jackie's partner. But nobody knows
how he looks like. His identity is one of the suprises of the film.

The
characters, the plot and even the actor's performances are all but
breathtaking. Despite these facts, Rush Hour made over $120 million at the box office.
It is a film for simple pleasures and one that may entertain teenagers.
Jackie Chan still cannot act but he remains a great stuntman.